THOMAS Sorensen admits Villa are "back to square one" and must beat Watford and then "kick on" to have any chance of finishing in the top half of the Premiership.

THOMAS Sorensen admits Villa are "back to square one" and must beat Watford and then "kick on" to have any chance of finishing in the top half of the Premiership.

The Danish keeper was in fine form after returning from a nine-match absence in the 3-1 defeat at Manchester United.

Now he is focused on helping Villa end a depressing run of 12 games without a win.

"At the moment it's not looking too good, so we need to turn that around," said Sorensen. "We didn't do too well at Old Trafford and we need to pick ourselves up.

"We need a win and then we must kick on from there. We need to get back into contention for the top half of the table."

Watford arrive in rock-bottom, seemingly destined for the drop but having been unlucky to only draw with Villa at Vicarage Lane in September.

"The Watford game is a massive game," Sorensen said. "Hopefully we'll have one or two players coming in and we need to win that game. That's the focus now. We had such a good start, now we've dropped and we're back to square one.

"We need to pick up points and it's essential that we win against Watford."

Reflecting on his comeback match, Sorensen added: "I thought we played very badly for the first 20 minutes and obviously it was hard for me to settle because they were straight at me from the kick-off.

"From a personal point of view I was pleased to be back and I made some good saves in the second-half, but overall it was a deserved victory for them.

"We have to do better at keeping the ball and not giving it away in crucial areas. Probably one or two of the goals were down to that.

"For me it was important to get back in. I hadn't played a game for seven weeks and to return at Old Trafford, you know you're going to have plenty to do.

"I thought maybe I could have done better with the second goal. Another week or so in training and I would have saved it.

"I thought Milan Baros made a fantastic run for the goal. It was tough for him but he put himself about all game and got his reward by setting up the goal.

"It got better in the second half, but we still let them create too many chances. You can't let a team like Manchester United create 10 clear-cut chances and expect to get away with anything.

"It's been very frustrating on the sidelines. The team hasn't done too well and I just wanted to get back in."